Using Web Worker for Long Tasks in Oracle JET

JavaScript app runs in a single thread. This means if there is a long-running resource-intensive operation - the thread will be blocked and the page will stay frozen until operation completes. Obviously, this is not user-friendly and such behavior should be avoided. We can use Web Workers, through Web Workers we could run long-running operations in separate threads, without blocking the main thread. Code running in Web Worker doesn't have access to UI DOM, this means logic coded in Web Worker should operate with logic which is not directly related to UI.

Sample app contains commented code in dashboard.js. This code blocks main thread for 10 seconds, if you uncomment it - you will see that app becomes frozen for 10 seconds:

Web Worker is defined in dashboard.js. Web Worker is a separate JS file, which is being used for Worker object. API allows to send and receive messages, this way we can communicate to and from Web Worker (start a new task and receive message when task is completed):

Web Worker code - onmessage invoked when the message arrives from the main thread. postMessage sends message back to the main thread:

The sample app is available on GitHub repo.

Oracle JET - How To Reference JavaScript Module in HTML

I will explain how to reference JavaScript module function in Oracle JET HTML. In previous Oracle JET versions, we were using $root to access parent appController module. Syntax $root looks a bit like magic, it is better to reference module through a predefined variable. I will show you how.

Sample app comes with number converter, which helps to format numeric value. For convenience reasons and better reuse, number formatting function is moved to a separate module. Our goal is to call function self.convertNumericValue from converter module inside our module HTML:

Import the converter module into your target module. Make sure to define a variable for the import. Then define the local variable and assign it with the value pointing to the imported module. This will allow calling functions from the imported module, anywhere within our target module:

To demonstrate how it works, I will include a call to format number for the table column. I have defined a table column template for that reason:

Within the template, I'm calling converter (function is called by referencing local variable) to format number:

It works well, the column with salary values is formatted by function from the imported module:

A sample application is available on my GiHub repo.

Oracle JET Model ID Attribute

When building Oracle JET Model/Collection structure to render table, you should be careful defining ID attribute. This attribute must have unique values only, if there will be duplicates in ID, then table rows will be rendered incorrectly.

Take as example below structure for Employees REST endpoint. EmployeId attribute provides unique values and it should be defined as ID for JET model:

Let's try and see what happens when non-unique DepartmentId attribute is set for a key in JET model:

In this case, during data fetch and UI table rendering (specifically when navigating to the next page of the table) - JET runtime for the table will get confused and will fetch all of the records from the backend (definitely, not what we want):

Ok, change it to the proper one - use EmployeeId for the ID in JET model:

The table works as expected:

Lesson learned - make sure to use an attribute with unique values for JET model ID. If there is no single attribute with unique values, the concatenate multiple attributes on the backend to construct a single attribute with unique value.

Source code is available from my GitHub repo.

Report Time Execution Prediction with Keras and TensorFlow

The aim of this post is to explain Machine Learning to software developers in hands-on terms. Model is based on a common use case in enterprise systems — predicting wait time until the business report is generated.

Report generation in business applications typically takes time, it can be from a few seconds to minutes. Report generation requires time, because typically it would fetch and process many records, this process needs time. Users often get frustrated, they don’t know how long to wait until the report is finished and may go away by closing browser, etc. If we could inform user, before submitting the report request — how it long it will take to execute it, this would be great usability improvement.

I have implemented Machine Learning model using Keras regression to calculate expected report execution time, based on training data (logged information from the past report executions). Keras is a library which wraps TensorFlow complexity into simple and user-friendly API.

Python source code and training data is available on my GitHub repo. This code is based on Keras tutorial.

Fix for Oracle VBCS "Error 404--Not Found"

We are using Pay As You Go Oracle VBCS instance and had an issue with accessing VBCS home page after starting the service. The service was started successfully, without errors. But when accessing VBCS home page URL - "Error 404--Not Found" was returned.

I raised a support ticket and must say - received the response and help promptly. If you would encounter similar issue yourself, hopefully, this post will share some light.

Apparently "Error 404--Not Found" was returned, because VBCS instance wasn't initialized during instance start. It wasn't initialized, because of expired password for VBCS DB schemas. Yes, you read it right - internal system passwords expire in Cloud too.

Based on the instructions given by Oracle Support, I was able to extract logs from VBCS WebLogic instance (by connecting through SSH to VBCS cloud machine) and provide it to support team (yes, VBCS runs on WebLogic). They found password expire errors in the log, similar to this:

weblogic.application.ModuleException: java.sql.SQLException: ORA-28001: the password has expired

Based on provided instructions, I extracted VBCS DB schema name and connected through SQL developer. Then I executed SQL statement given by support team to reset all VBCS DB passwords in bulk. Next password expiry is set for 2019/January. Should it expire at all?

Summary: If you would encounter "Error 404--Not Found" after starting VBCS instance and trying to access VBCS home page, then most likely (but not always) it will be related to VBCS DB schema password expiry issue.

Forecast Model Tuning with Additional Regressors in Prophet

I’m going to share my experiment results with Prophet additional regressors. My goal was to check how extra regressor would weight on forecast calculated by Prophet.

Using dataset from Kaggle — Bike Sharing in Washington D.C. Dataset. Data comes with a number for bike rentals per day and weather conditions. I have created and compared three models:

1. Time series Prophet model with date and number of bike rentals
2. A model with additional regressor —weather temperature
3. A model with additional regressor s— weather temperature and state (raining, sunny, etc.)

We should see the effect of regressor and compare these three models.

Read more in my Towards Data Science post.

Oracle ADF A Status Update

Oracle posted information update for Oracle ADF - "With the continuous investment and usage of Oracle ADF inside Oracle we expect external customers will also continue to enjoy the benefits of Oracle ADF for many more years."

Read the complete post here: https://blogs.oracle.com/jdeveloperpm/oracle-adf-a-status-update

Happy to read the update, sounds positive. Thanks to Oracle for taking time and publishing this information. #adf #middleware #javascript #oracle #cloud #oraclefusion